[blml] claim

[Eric Landau]

On Dec 18, 2007, at 11:39 AM, <gesta at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> From: "Eric Landau" <ehaa at starpower.net>
>
>> On Dec 17, 2007, at 6:51 PM, <gesta at tiscali.co.uk>
>> <gesta at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> From: "Eric Landau" <ehaa at starpower.net>
>>> .................................................................... 
>>> ..
>>> +=+ I think that the 'concession of the remainder'
>>> and the 'claim of some number of tricks' are synchronous
>>> and inseparable. When the one is taken away so is the
>>> other. The 2001 minute was a clarification of that and
>>> I have no reason to believe there is a change. If I am
>>> right 68D does not apply to something that has ceased
>>> to be.
>>
>> That just doesn't fly.  The 2001 minute was a clarification of a 1997
>> law.  That law has been superceded in the 2008 code; to say that the
>> law no longer has any force but its clarifying interpretation still
>> does is self-contradictory and absurd.  If the 2001 minute was
>> intended to be law in 2008, shouldn't someone have put it in the 2008
>> lawbook?  Is Grattan or the WBF really suggesting that the force of a
>> law might be affected by clarifying language that was written six
>> years before the law was?  That's pure insane-asylum stuff.
>>
> +=+ It is my personal view that the principle has not changed
>  in the 2007 Laws. If this is so, then neither has the interpretation.
>  If anything has changed it lies in what Richard Hills observed
> - viz.
> ...................................................................... 
> .........................
> "Nice quibble from Eric, but the 2007 Law 68D cannot apply
> since the text of the 2007 Law 68B2 commences "Regardless of
> [68B]1 preceding".  As the old joke says, "You can't get
> there (2007 Law 68D) from here (2007 Law 68B2)."
>
> 2007 Law 68B2:
>
> Regardless of 1 preceding, if a defender attempts to concede
> one or more tricks and his partner immediately objects, no
> concession has occurred. Unauthorized information may exist,
> so the Director should be summoned immediately. Play
> continues. Any card that has been exposed by a defender in
> these circumstances is not a penalty card but Law 16D
> applies to information arising from its exposure and the
> information may not be used by the partner of the defender
> who has exposed it."
> ...................................................................... 
> .....................
> Defender has attempted to concede one or more tricks. His
> partner has immediately objected. The Director is summoned.
> Play continues under the stated conditions.

OK, let's see if I get it.  We wrote a law in 1997 that misstated its  
intent; it didn't mean what it said.  These things happen.  So we  
issued a minute that restated the law correctly, and then we knew  
what it meant.  So far so good.  Then in 2007, we knew what we wanted  
the law to mean before, and we didn't want to change its meaning, but  
we decided to keep its misstated (and, patently, potentially  
misleading, otherwise it would not have been in need of an  
interpreting minute in the first place) language unchanged, so now it  
says the same thing that it said but didn't mean in 1997, and still  
continues not to mean it, and if we want to know what the 2007 law  
really means, we need the restatement of the 1997 law, which, of  
course, has the force of an official reinterpretation of a law that  
postdated it by a decade.  Because why wouldn't it?  Why would we  
ever want to get it right, when we can deliberately get it wrong so  
that we can retroactively re-re-interpret it using a 10-year-old  
correction of the original language, in secret, and lock it in  
Richard's leopard-loo?

Strikes me as a hell of a way to run a laws commission.

Grattan has posted the relevant minute from 2001 to BLML.  It echoes  
L68B in that if a defender tries to concede but his partner  
immediately objects "no concession has occurred", and then it goes on  
to add the key words "and by the same token neither has any claim  
been made".  That does not say the same thing as does the original  
language, but does say, quite clearly, what it means.  So who would  
it have killed to put those additional words in the 2008 lawbook?


Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net